


The Scarlet Witch

by TheSovereigntyofReality



Series: New Timeline [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, But canon squick, Gen, Not Wanda Friendly, Not really Steve Friendly either, References to Mind Control, Squick, Time-Displaced Characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-17 02:55:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29343192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSovereigntyofReality/pseuds/TheSovereigntyofReality
Summary: Sequel toNew Timeline. Read first for this to make sense.Thompson and Sousa hear Rogers referencing a kid called Wanda. They come to the Stark Mansion to find out who he's talking about.
Relationships: Charles Xavier & Peter Maximoff, Edwin Jarvis & Howard Stark, Howard Stark & Morgan Stark (Marvel Cinematic Universe), Peggy Carter & Daniel Sousa & Howard Stark & Jack Thompson, Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers (mentioned), Pietro Maximoff & Wanda Maximoff, Wanda Maximoff/Vision (mentioned)
Series: New Timeline [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2155341
Comments: 61
Kudos: 305





	The Scarlet Witch

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ana (Anafandom)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anafandom/gifts).



> **Disclaimer: If you recognise it from somewhere else, it isn't mine.**

Jarvis brought Agents Sousa and Thompson into the library where Mr. and Miss Stark were bent over some notes and suchlike. After the greetings, it was Agent Sousa that brought it up.

‘So, you know that Rogers is due to be executed tomorrow?’

‘Yes,’ both Starks said.

‘Peg was allowed in to say goodbye to him,’ Thompson said. ‘While we were in there, he went on a rant about some kid called “Wanda”.’

Morgan Stark clicked her tongue. ‘Wanda Maximoff was not a kid at any point he knew her.’

Mr. Stark looked up. ‘You knew her?’

‘I knew her sons,’ Morgan said. ‘They managed to hold the world’s destruction back longer than anyone else would’ve been able to. But, in the end, they died too.’ She let out a low whistle. ‘I don’t like thinking about how bad those two would’ve been screwed up.’

Mr. Stark looked up, eyebrow cocked. Jarvis looked at Morgan curiously. Thompson and Sousa looked at each other before turning their attention back to the adolescent girl.

‘Who was she?’ Thompson asked.

‘Wanda Maximoff was a Sokovian who was capable of reality-warping, telekinesis, and telepathy – including mind-control.’ Morgan moved to a seat and sat down. ‘Her country was in the middle of a civil war and when she was ten, her apartment building was knocked down. Her parents were killed and she and her twin brother were trapped, by their account, for two days. They spent those two days staring at what, by the time I was born, was generally thought to be a counterfeit Stark bomb.’

Mr. Stark nodded knowingly. ‘It didn’t explode?’

‘No,’ Morgan said. ‘Her brother also had powers, but his were more straight-forward – super-speed. They got those powers through allowing themselves to be subjected to experiments by HYDRA when they were eighteen. Rogers did not meet them until they were 26.’

Sousa frowned. ‘So…they were HYDRA?’

‘They were, but only because they’d fixated on the name on that bomb.’

Mr. Stark scoffed. ‘So they were basically Fennhoff with powers.’

‘Who’s Fennhoff?’ Morgan asked.

‘A guy that tried to kill yours gramps a few years back,’ Thompson answered. ‘His brother was killed when one of Howard’s weapons was stolen and used in an attack during the war. He held Howard, here, personally responsible for it. He’s locked up now, of course.’

Morgan nodded. ‘Then, yes. Basically Fennhoff with powers. Except the thing they try ends up backfiring spectacularly and they realise they’ll probably die too. So they swapped sides. Rogers decided then and there that dad actually _was_ personally responsible for their trauma and owed them somehow. His logic escapes me, and everybody else with half a brain. And then Pietro – her brother – dies in the fight and he just doubles down on it. He declared her to be a “misguided kid” who was “manipulated by HYDRA”.’

Jarvis raised his eyebrow. ‘Didn’t you say she was capable of telepathy?’

‘As I said,’ Morgan shrugged. ‘His logic escapes me.’

‘And her sons helped at the end?’ Thompson asked. ‘She doesn’t sound like the kind of person who’d be too happy with that.’

‘She was long-gone by then,’ Morgan said. ‘You see, about three weeks after my father died, she created a fantasy for herself to live in – we called it Pleasantville. Because it was meant to be idyllic and a sort-of-happily-ever-after. But, the entire population of the town were abducted and mind controlled to fit into her little world.’

There was dead silence in the room.

‘What?’ Sousa asked flatly.

‘To be fair, Rogers wouldn’t know about this bit,’ Morgan mused. ‘Anyway her sons, Billy and Tommy, were born in this place.’

Mr. Stark scowled. ‘So she mind-controlled some poor guy into being her husband?’

‘She did worse than that, pops,’ Morgan said. ‘She puppeteered his dead body into being her husband.’

For a moment, Jarvis’s mind blanked. The idea of desecrating a dead body to quite that extent was unthinkable. In fact, it took him a moment to realise that Morgan really _had_ said that. The only way he knew she did, and he hadn’t been hearing things, was the looks of utter revulsion on the faces of Mr. Stark and Agents Thompson and Sousa.

Morgan pointed around at the four of them. ‘Yeah!’

Sousa was the first to find his voice. ‘I’m almost afraid to ask, but…what happened?’

‘Well, like I said, it was her fantasy world,’ Morgan said. ‘She conceived, carried her children to term, and gave birth to them all in a single day. Then they aged themselves up twice. If she didn’t like the way something happened, she just reversed time so it never did. The thing is that it turns out that human brains have an incredible capacity to fight back. Things started leaking through for the townsfolk. One woman who confronted her was yeeted – sorry, flung out of Pleasantville. When the authorities picked her up, she still had some very strong loyalties to Wanda but her brain scan came back weird.’

‘So she was likely still under Wanda’s influence,’ Mr. Stark concluded.

‘I’d say so.’ Morgan nodded. ‘But, as Wanda’s fantasy world, she made the rules. One day, one of her sons asked her if she had a brother. I think that was the catalyst, because that was the time when Peter Maximoff landed in our dimension.’

‘And he was?’ Thompson asked.

‘An alternate version of her brother,’ Morgan explained. ‘But he was as American as us. In a manner of speaking, though, he was Pietro. He had the same powers and the same last name, and a variation of the same forename. That’s about where the similarities ended. Peter was a mutant in that other dimension, like Logan, and he was a member of the X-Men. That’s a mutant taskforce that forms in 20 years or so. So, he landed in the area of the X-Men’s base when Wanda pulled him here. The leader of the X-Men was quite a powerful telepath himself.’

‘I’m hoping he noticed and cut off Maximoff’s influence.’ Jarvis finally found his voice.

‘He did, and that’s how the X-Men got involved.’ Morgan smiled wryly. ‘Once they did their homework and realised what was happening, they decided they had to help. There were two federal agencies looking into the issue, but they had no way to defend against Wanda’s powers and no way to fight back. The X-Men, on the other hand, did have ways to defend against her and they _could_ fight back. The problem was that they didn’t want any civilians caught in the crossfire. Peter actually volunteered to go into Pleasantville as Pietro and extract the civilians.’

‘A whole town?’ Mr. Stark asked. ‘And without her noticing, I bet?’ He waited for Morgan’s nod. ‘That would’ve taken quite a bit of time.’

‘Yeah. He started with the people that Wanda didn’t see regularly and wouldn’t miss.’ She chuckled. ‘Apparently, Wanda didn’t realise she’d “brought Pietro back”. I’ve gotta say, I’ve seen the tapes and he did a really good job of bluffing his way through that situation.’ She pulled a face. ‘Give it six years and you’ll get what I mean when I say “I’ve seen it”.’ She tucked a wayward strand of hair behind her ear. ‘Anyway, so at this point her husband was starting to regain his own consciousness. He was getting suspicious. He’d also met Pietro, before both of them had died. So he was the first to realise Peter wasn’t quite Pietro, but he kept his mouth shut about it.’

‘Well, yeah,’ Thompson said. ‘I imagine he wanted her stopped too.’

‘He did eventually ask Peter point-blanc,’ Morgan said. ‘Peter judged it safe to answer him honestly. It also told the feds what was going on.’ She paused and nodded her head. ‘Cause they were watching. Then, her husband started helping the X-Men evacuate the town faster by diverting Wanda’s attention off of the shrinking town population.’

Mr. Stark chuckled. ‘And she never picked up on any of this?’

‘Peter’s mind was shielded by the leader of the X-Men,’ Morgan told him. ‘Her husband had his own powers that allowed him to protect his mind too. But…Peter had started getting very nervous about one of Wanda’s neighbours. Agnes, I think her name was. For that reason, they sped up the evacuation. Turned out the people closest to Wanda were more aware of the threat she posed and were more eager to leave their “homes” behind. The last thing he did in Pleasantville was “take the kids camping with Uncle Pietro”.’

Sousa nodded. ‘And that’s when everything came to a head?’

‘Well, to cut a long story short, the town was emptied of everyone but Wanda and her husband, so the X-Men strode into town,’ Morgan said. ‘Her husband made himself scarce and used his final moments to write a letter to his sons, explaining everything. Wanda took on the X-Men and lost. She got away from them, and showed up a few more times before she died for good.’

Morgan jumped up.

‘But that’s another story!’

**Author's Note:**

> It actually kind of annoyed me what WandaVision has introduced after I finished _New Timeline_ cause it gave me a mental image of Morgan going "you do realise that "kid" locked an entire town in her personal fantasy, right?" at Steve.


End file.
